LiDAR circuit models

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by toodaft, Sep 28, 2011.

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  1. CdnRacer

    CdnRacer Banned

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    I don't think they'll ever get it Lazza. Jyllandsringen by Custom 8 for Race07 had great reviews by real racers who have raced on the real deal. That obviously was not a LS track. I'm really starting to think some of these fellows are newbs or blind. Not sure which.
     
  2. MystaMagoo

    MystaMagoo Registered

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    At the end of the day we sim racers,just like real life racers,depend mostly on the feedback coming from the wheel.
    For me FFB is greatly overlooked.

    So long as there was accurate forces applied to my wheel which felt realish (Leo B says realistic FFB not possible yet) then I don't really care if a track is LS or not.

    Also at the end of the day someone will convert iracings LS tracks for rF2 sooner or later!!

    Oran Park LiDAR 1.10
    http://www.rfactorcentral.com/detail.cfm?ID=Oran Park LiDAR
     
  3. MaXyM

    MaXyM Registered

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    I suppose you don't even care you are racing a sim or arcade game.
     
  4. MystaMagoo

    MystaMagoo Registered

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    I've had many a good race in NFSMW and NFSHP :p
    Racers just love racing period.

    Point I was trying to make is even if a track was LiDAR and the physics were spot on it would all mean diddly squat if the feedback through the wheel felt like mush.
     
  5. PLAYLIFE

    PLAYLIFE Registered

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    Jacques Villeneuve used GP2 to practice Spa cos he hadn't been there before. He said it helped him immensely.
     
  6. Old Hat

    Old Hat Registered

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    Fair enough. But the changes of camber and dips that are all over the place in the LS tracks, I'm not seeing matched in regular tracks. So something's wrong. And subtle variations can have big effects, depending on where they are. Certainly do in iRacing anyway. But on some tracks you can even see on Youtube major differences in corner radii and general shape from RL. If you can get it better than it is, then great. I just don't see it's happening at the moment.
     
  7. CdnRacer

    CdnRacer Banned

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    Like talking to a shoe
     
  8. PLAYLIFE

    PLAYLIFE Registered

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    Unless you have a way of checking that the subtle variations are real (apart from assuming laser scanning captured everything correctly), then how do you know how accurate it is? When I design aircraft parts at work, I have the capability to calculate aero efficiencies to 20 decimal points. But there's no need, because 4 will do. The detail is nice but overall it's pointless. I'm better off spending my time working on something else.

    Which is the original topic; whether LS tracks are value for money currently. Everyone agrees they are more accurate. But the additional accuracy has very low benefit (if at all, one can argue).
     
  9. mianiak

    mianiak Registered

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    A little bit off topic, but I have a Q. People say that gps is not accurate and I wonder what is meant by that. If the inaccuracy is just small bumps then that's understandable, but what about elevation and location? how inaccurate is GPS in that area?
     
  10. MaXyM

    MaXyM Registered

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    @Maniak
    GPS technology itself allows to determine position with a few centimetres accuracy.
    But for civilian usage the precision is lowered down to about 20m (before year 2000 it was 100m). Depending on compensation techniques you can get closer to few metres.


    Don't forget that there are also simracers. And we still talking about trying to simulate RL as the best as we can. So accuracy does matter for us (excepting a few ones for whom accuracy has low benefit or doesn't matter because FF behaviour is not like real)
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 7, 2011
  11. MrDaniels

    MrDaniels Registered

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    Actually with the proper (expensive) equipment GPS can deliver sub centimeter accuracy....but it would take a ton of work to get the amount of information that you could get from a good point cloud data set. Either way it would not be cheap to obtain data to build an existing track. At work we use Lidar on a daily basis and it typically costs us about $2000(Cdn) for a 640,000 sq. m. area. (800mx800m) ...not to mention the software to process the data and dtm it....so to use it to build tracks would be a cha chingly hobby... :)
     
  12. Bill Zimmerman

    Bill Zimmerman Registered

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    TSF has three tracks built in combination of GPS, LIDAR and old fashioned CAD drawings. On road courses such as NJMP, it worked quite well, the GPS was quite helpful there. We used a telemic GPS run initially for Michigan, but found that a bit undesireable as it recorded the drivers line vs the actual track itself. We used that data to build in the "live track groove" and transitions instead with satellite data. It's a lot of work, and pays dividends in some respects for a developer, just as LS does. Many ways to skin a cat ... :)
     
  13. Marek Lesniak

    Marek Lesniak Car Team Staff Member

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    Yes but let's call it as should - military grade GPS device + land reference base (don't remember what is a proper english name for that) might give you such accuracy, in specific conditions (mobile GPS itself, even military grade, when receiving signals from the satellites instead of a land base, will not give you such accuracy), but I think it will be more expensive than hiring a team which will do laser scanning ;-)
     
  14. CdnRacer

    CdnRacer Banned

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    Some aren't so hooked on this real life thing. For alot sim racing is a cheap way to compete/race. Accuracy is nice but really when it comes to a track/circuit I like eye candy and to be able to recognise the place from t.v and pictures of seen from real life. It's also nice to get in sim lap times similar to real life times as that adds to immersion. If it was possible to get a 100 percent accurate track for cheap and the physics and FFB were crap the accurate track would be next to useless. Anyways.....seems like beating a dead horse at this point.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 7, 2011
  15. GT VIRUS

    GT VIRUS Registered

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    It surprises me that only one person has remembered the LS and Lidar tracks we have atm (Eastern Creek and Oran Park), and these tracks are great at showing the pro's and con's of laser scanning. The most obvious con is that these do not do the best job with the data, with the track being too triangular (for want of a better word) and they don't look the best.

    However to me, they are the best track's in rfactor now. I am a racer to wants to be immersed in my racing, and these tracks feel the most real. It's not that the bumps are there, it's that they are are varied, no part of the track feels the same or canned. It's the subtle changes around that track that are basicly impossible to recreate manually that make the track to me.

    Of course, track's are a living thing, with bumps changing over time. To a racer learning the track, using the laser scanning to learn where the bumps are is pointless. But for learning the rest of the track, from the basic line, reference points etc. These are thing's that can take a couple of laps IRL, which can be critical when you are short on practice time heading to a new track for the first time.

    I am a believer that Laser Scanning is of great benefit to sim racing, and after trying Eastern Creek many years ago now, I can't get into tracks that aren't laser scanned anymore. Nor could I keep making tracks, knowing my efforts would feel sterile and not real enough. It's just a pity that it's so expensive :(

    P.s anyone knowing a cheap way to laser scan tracks, even if not very detailed, should PM me right away! ;)
     
  16. Lazza

    Lazza Registered

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    Yep, I like those two as well (apart from Oran Park not working properly in multiplayer because the fences haven't been done properly in the AIW and remote cars don't stay off track... maybe I'm missing a more recent version), and I'm not at all a fan of tracks that rely on one or two tdf surface types for 98% of the track (leading to a pretty sine wave in telemetry suspension traces). Admittedly I don't know how much you can avoid doing that before memory use becomes an issue, and no doubt poring over onboard footage for a day or two to find all the 'noticeable' bumps, then adding them, is a lot of work, but obviously it needs to be done to compete with LS at all.
     
  17. blakboks

    blakboks Registered

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    To me this whole issue of laser-scanned vs. non-laser-scanned is a lot like musicians talking about mp3 vs whatever (analog, 24-bit/96khz digital, SACD, etc.). One could equate non-LS to a 196kbps mp3 and LS to 24/96. Mp3 obviously works for MOST people, iTunes would have been a bust if it didn't. However, for people that have invested money into their stereo and actually have a hi-fi system are probably going to want something closer to 24/96. Granted, there are standards in between these extremes (i.e. 320kpbs mp3--for which we might equate to 1M resolution GPS for the sake of argument).

    I think if you're playing Forza or Gran Turismo, then non-LS tracks are just fine. But, we as sim racers have probably invested quite a bit more into the experience, whether it's in our input devices (wheels, pedals, shifters, e-brakes, etc.) or in the computer and monitor(s), for the sake of getting a more immersive, realistic experience. For which, it seems kinda silly to have done all that and to race on something that has a 1M accuracy---that's a HUGE margin of error! Could you imagine driving along and all-of-a-sudden coming upon a 1M bump or dip where it shouldn't be! I know ISI wouldn't allow that particular instance to happen, but it just highlights the inaccuracies inherent with such low-resolution mapping. Now, I don't know if 1M GPS is what ISI actually uses, but I'm sure there's plenty of modders out there who are using such.

    As far as the argument about 'LS is only a snapshot of a track at a given time'--well, creating one from lower-resolution GPS or YouTube videos is like a painting of the track at a given time. ...and now we're into an argument of which gives you a better representation of a place? a photograph (LS) or a painting (non-LS)? Well, a photograph shows exactly what it sees of that place, and a painting gives one artist's impression of the place. Photographs can seem unreal, and paintings can feel more than real. Driving is half science, half art. I wasn't really sure where I was going with this, but I guess my opinion is that photographs can be artful as well. Anyway, I don't really know why there's even this argument to begin with--to bring back the music metaphor, it makes as much sense to me as someone arguing that an album is only a snapshot of a single performance and that you shouldn't bother buying the album because the band plays the song differently every time. That's all fine and well, but I don't have the time or money to see them perform at every show, nor will they perform for me in my car on my way to work (i.e. I don't have money to go to the track, and I can't race there whenever I feel like it anyway--but that doesn't mean I wouldn't like race on an accurate version of that track even if it was only captured at one moment in time).

    I've heard rumors of $60K to scan a track (of what size, I'm not sure). I'm sure the actual costs are significantly more considering licenses, artwork creation, mod setup, etc. I don't know what ISI's sales figures are, but it seems like several dollars per track would cover those costs. I'm not a fan of iRacing's pricing for the most part--I like to own, not rent, whenever possible. However, combined with everything else that rF2 is offering, if I had the choice of buying LS tracks in addition to the cost of rF2, I would ABSOLUTELY welcome it! I would hope that a large part of people involved in these forums would agree. Seeing as nearly every other game out on the market now supports licensed DLC (by 'licensed' I mean, 'you pay for it'), I would think that ISI have the ability to do so as well, if they haven't already. Like I said before, for as much as we pay for our simracing rigs, why would you skimp on the tracks? I feel this way, and I can bet that MANY of you have spent MANY times more on your rigs than I have (which is just a G25 wheel/pedal/shifter and a single monitor on my regular computer desk--no fancy separate gated and sequential shifter, no 'after-market' wheel on the G25, no 3-monitor setup, no racing seat/chassis setup). It makes about as much sense to me as putting bargain tires on your sports car--they're good enough, right?

    As far as the implementation of LS data (Eastern Creek's and Oran Park's Achilles heels), might I refer to a previous suggestion of mine :D: http://isiforums.net/f/showthread.php/846-Bump-crack-mapping
     
  18. Revvin

    Revvin Registered

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    I agree, those who want the best possible experience and who have invested will want to know they are using the best software technology available, there will also be those playing on a joypad and not really care much but as I said in my last post in this thread sometimes its about ensuring your product looks current or cutting edge. iRacing uses laser scanning and now Slightly Mad Studio's have announced they will be laser scanning four British racing circuits for their C.A.R.S project which looks like its shaping up very nicely. With rFactor 2, C.A.R.S, iRacing and maybe GTR 3 racing fans have some fun times ahead.

     
  19. CdnRacer

    CdnRacer Banned

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    This will be interesting to see if another dev. can put out LS tracks.
     
  20. lasercutter

    lasercutter Registered

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    And again the accuracy hype machine begins

    the scan may well capture detail at that resolution but the track mesh itself will be nowhere near that accurate, in order to have that resolution a typical 13m wide track would be 6500 polys wide, not going to happen, the highest resolution laser scan mesh I've seen was probably about 30-40 polys across, whilst each vert was accurately positioned in relation to the scan it certainly doesn't contain every bump and crack in the tracks as the hype machine would have you believe.
    It's been a source of annoyance for a long time that iRacing has perpetuated this myth about their accuracy and it seems that to justify the costs involved dev teams will read from the back of the laser scanner manual and pass off scan accuracy as being the same as track mesh accuracy.
    Having said that, I firmly believe that iRacings biggest attraction is the tracks and applaud the fact that C.A.R.S appear to be the first big name to try and bring the technology to the masses, laser scanning is by far the best way to gather data for a track and the four tracks announced by SMS yesterday will be fantastic to race on.
     

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